We have added a Gift Upgrades feature that allows you to gift an account upgrade to another member, just in time for the holiday season. You can see the gift option when going to the Account Upgrades screen, or on any user profile screen.

[Tuning] Religion: Reformation Beliefs

In this thread, we will take a look at the Reformation Beliefs to see how they stand up next to each other and if any of them need tweaking.

Overall, I will use a simple ranking system to look at them.

A - Great, no change
C - Is a bit too weak, a bit too strong, or just not quite interesting enough. Needs some possible adjustment.
F - Is too weak or too strong, and needs some love.

Crusader Spirit: +10% CS in enemy lands, +10% CS against those with opposing religion. Receive gold and culture when you conquer cities.

(A)

+20% CS against enemies at times, nice! Gold and culture are also quite nice. Solid for conquest.

Defender of the Faith: +10% CS against people in your own lands, +10% CS against those of an opposing religion. +1 faith per defensive buildings.

(F)

Crusader Spirit works well as offense and defense. You want to conquer the world? Great. You want to get a person warring with you to stop? Go take his cities and sue for peace. If your playing a defensive game there are better ways to do it then this.

Faith of the Masses: Buy Opera Houses, Museums, and Broadcast towers with faith.

(C)

On the one hand, this saves you a lot of hammers, and hammers are always useful. On the other, its a lot of faith at a time when you get use that faith to buy Great Writers for example. I don't know how it balances out, but I don't think its the strongest tool in the deck here.

Global Commandments: Gain +10 Science, Gold, Culture, Faith, and GA points per turn while host of the WC. Gain 150 of those same yields when you pass a resolution. Era Scale on both bonuses.

N/A...maybe C or F for being OP.

I actually haven't tried this one myself, honestly I don't know why. This seems like an absolutely gimme for someone going strong diplomacy play. Effectively getting a solid bonus every turn, and then a mini Transcendence like bump every 15 or so turns, for if you are doing strong diplomacy getting your own proposal to pass is not that hard.

Seems like an incredible pile of bonuses, probably too strong but I'll need others take on it.

Jesuit Education: Buy Universities, Public Schools, and Research Labs with Faith.

(C)

For pretty much the same reason as Faith of the Masses. The benefit is nice, I just think there are better ones here that also don't burn your faith.
Knowledge through Devotion: +3 faith/+1 culture for each landmark and great person improvement.

(F)

Global Commandments blows this out of the water, Defender of the Faith will likely net you more faith. You just don't get that many GP improvements and landmarks in the game to really make this worth it. I think this one has to add on to Great Works to have a shot at some real balance.

I give it a C since for cultural players it gives them that needed tourism, but there are just much much better beliefs here, even if you have 2 religious buildings per city. A weak C....and only for cultural players.

To the Glory of God: Purchase any type of GP with faith. Gain +50 gold, science, culture, and faith when a Great Person is expended (ERA Scale).

(A)

This one can actually be the greatest faith generator in the game if you use it right. If you are willing to spread out your GP buying from the 2 or 3 you usually can buy with policies, and extend that into the other GPs....you save a tremendous amount of faith compared to a person going all Great Writers or Scientists. Then combine this with all of the bonuses you can already get for GP expenditure, and it makes GP expending one of the best bonuses in the game.

This is one of my go toos, probably the strongest non war belief in this deck without being OP....though its on the cusp.

I've tried Global Commandments before and it didn't seem too overwhelming. The proposal thing triggering isn't very noticeable usually since it's only a turns worth of yields roughly. The increased yields are decent but nothing mindblowing either.

I think adding great works to Knowledge through Devotion would indeed be a nice touch as it's a bit underwhelming atm.

Other than that I'd say they're mostly fine. Defender of the Faith is probably not gonna get picked by human players much since you generally don't need the combat boost on defense and the other beliefs give you much more in non-combat yields.

Knowledge trough devotion is a little better with Hotels, but I think it could do with a little more push.

I see no point in Defender of the Faith either. Perhaps a scientific player surrounded by warmongers could make use of this, but it is so circumstantial that the bonus doesn't make for its rarity. As it is now, it only gives a small amount of faith (1-3 in every city), and the eventual chance of doing better while defending in owned lands.

I think it is a tactic to lure the enemy into a well defended position of yours, where you can heal faster, crush their units and then go invading. But this usually leads to longer wars and suffer some pillaging. But the real problem is that I would only pick this reform if going domination, but I would never pick it before Crusader Spirit. Is it a backup for warmongers? If you want to attrack warmongers, give something better than 1 faith per fortification. I'd say faster movement in owned lands, faster healing or a bonus on kills. I like the extra movement in owned lands, it allows for faster reinforcement, and makes it easier to fight in several fronts.

Crusader Spirit - great for how I play, AI hates taking it. Very nice for Authority. While theoretically not super powerful, I love it because it fits me and the +20% CS is neat when going for a Conquest victory. A or A+

Global Commandments:
Seems pretty bad to me but then I am rarely diplomatic. I'd rather take Knowledge Through Devotion every time - if I go Tradition, I'll get way more Faith and probably more Culture without ever fearing that I lose them if something goes wrong. B

Jesuit Education: not a fan, but better than Culture of Masses. B

Knowledge through Devotion:

I actually don't dislike it. If you play Spain or Byzantium and get Mission/Basilica + +1Faith per follower, you can get 10 Prophet spawns by Renaissance, and each of their things will be giving you more Faith and Culture as a result. Better than Glory of God on conquest because, well, if you conquer some pesky Tradition guy who settled lots of GPs, you're in for lots and lots of Faith by working his improvements. B+. (In this case it might be better than Crusader spirit yield wise if you conquer before Renaissance)

I hate diplomacy most of the time. I'd rather spill blood for the blood god and ensure the skulls of my enemies make for a nice skull throne. Pretty underwhelming even for a diplomat IMHO, but it's the best choice for someone like that. B.

Sacred Sites: - neat. If you go Byzantium and get 3 buildings and go Wide + Piety, it really shows what it can do. However buildings altogether seem pretty weak compared to 1 per 1/2 followers thingamajigs, so I can't give more than B+ or A-.

To the Glory of God: - the highlight is the "buy any GP". Best one probably. S-

Knowledge through Devotion is the one I hate most. I'd rather be able to take a second pantheon, even when I'm playing Tradition. Would prefer to see something like +1F/C/S per Era on Great Person Tiles.

I prefer Jesuit over Faith of the Masses, but wouldn't mind if they also gave an amount of Culture or Science per turn based on your Faith output. Even if it was gain 1 Science for every 10 Faith generated in your city.

Defender of the Faith is something I've never desired or tried. Not sure how it could be balanced. Maybe it helps reduce Crime by adding more defence to Wall type buildings.

I quite like One World, One Religion, but would prefer for it to scale with the size of base map. Currently a small map is for 6 players and 12 CS, Standard for 8 civs and 16 CS and so on. So if it gave 1 per 6 on Small, 1 per 8 on Standard etc - it works out at 2 votes regardless of map size, unless you add additional CSs.

Defender of the Faith: +10% CS against people in your own lands, +10% CS against those of an opposing religion. +1 faith per defensive buildings.

Click to expand...

Rating: F. Defensive bonuses aren't really that great.

Faith of the Masses: Buy Opera Houses, Museums, and Broadcast towers with faith.

Click to expand...

Rating: C. Not really a fan of this. It does save a few hammers, but you're giving up far better stuff.

Global Commandments: Gain +10 Science, Gold, Culture, Faith, and GA points per turn while host of the WC. Gain 150 of those same yields when you pass a resolution. Era Scale on both bonuses.

Click to expand...

Rating: B: Pretty good if you can become the host and hold on being the host. However, from my experience, people aren't usually the one hitting printing press first. But if you can, this is insanely good.

Jesuit Education: Buy Universities, Public Schools, and Research Labs with Faith.

Click to expand...

Rating: C-. See Faith of the Masses. But this is worse because science isn't as good as culture.

Knowledge through Devotion: +3 faith/+1 culture for each landmark and great person improvement.

Click to expand...

Rating: C+. It's not bad. But it's far outclassed. The small amount of faith and culture isn't that great unless you have a lot of planted GPs.

Rating: A. Getting extra votes is extremely nice, especially when you want to pass certain proposals (such as your own world religion). But to be honest, this is good because the rest is so poor in comparison. But normally, this will only be picked up if you are working towards a diplomatic victory, or you really need help for WC.

Knowledge Through Devotion is a nice idea but as a GP-focused belief it can't hold a candle to Glory of God. I agree that it could use a bonus from Great Works since those are basically the equivalent of tile improvements from the culture-oriented GPs. Maybe one or two Faith/Science to sort of mirror the effect of the tile improvements? Still feels a bit on the weak side though, hm.

For Jesuit Education and Culture of the Masses, a new Science/Culture building only purchasable with Faith would be kind of neat, or maybe just some passive bonuses from Science/Culture buildings respectively. They're helpful but just the ability to get a couple of buildings with Faith instead of Production seems weak compared to some of the other options and considering how much work getting a Reformation belief is.

I'm not sure Defender of the Faith needs a change. I probably wouldn't go for it 99% of the time because I don't like playing solely defensive especially on higher difficulties but it's a valid choice if you do plan to turtle up, or for AIs who play that way.

I think that Jesuit Education and Culture of the Masses seem a bit weak, lately, too.
I don't know whether it was because of the Great Prophet generation buff, or if the scaling of faith-purchasing changed, but it doesn't really feel efficient : public schools costing between half and a third of a Great Prophet doesn't feel "right", for example.
Maybe the cost could be adjusted, for some faith could be added to the buildings ?

Knowledge Through Devotion seems quite powerful to me. Especially if you are stacking Tradition into Aesthetics, you're creating some seriously powerful tiles.

Click to expand...

I think it still falls short compared to the sheer amount of great tile improvements you can get with glory of god and for that reason I never pick it if glory of god is still available. I think the 3 faith usually doesn't mean that much because the price for faith buying GPs goes up so fast and 1 culture per tile is just so meh. I think it is rather weak belief.

Defender of the Faith is more yield heavy than KTD even for tall empires most of the time, that's pretty sad considering DOTF has other effects though

Although Defender does seem a bit overtuned, it definitely needs a nerf imho - by far the best yields out of all beliefs and 30% CS in your own lands is too much.

Click to expand...

Playing passive-aggressively and wait for the enemy inside your territory is not that easy. Wars are quite longer. This makes this strategy more viable. If you just want to turtle, there are other pantheons that give more yields.

Playing passive-aggressively and wait for the enemy inside your territory is not that easy. Wars are quite longer. This makes this strategy more viable. If you just want to turtle, there are other pantheons that give more yields.

Click to expand...

It's not a pantheon, and what reformation gives more yields than 3 Culture 2 Faith per Defense building? Or was it 2 Culture 3 Faith, I forgot.

It's actually decent even for conquest (provided there's no Byzantium in the game) as it ensures your enemy can't get it. If you have Crusader Spirit and try to fight someone with Defender, you get -10% CS when it matters. If you take Defender, you have better yields and you will never have to fight against a guy with bonus -10% CS.

Since DOTF is 80% of the time first-picked, that means enemy DOTF religion is the absolutely dominant one (either because India or Trade Route + range Enhancer), which means you will have to fight through several opponents with either -30% CS or -10% (if you take Crusader Spirit), so DOTF is actually superior to CS when conquering as you will never encounter any problems. Just try not to make it spread outside of your cities, which means you need either Basil or to go very tall and wide through conquest.

Playing for Science, I go with Glory of God every game, even though I control the WC maybe 75% of the time. It comes down to also having the world religion 75% of the time -- what would I do with all that late-game faith otherwise? (Serious question.)

I always glance at Global Commandments, and skim over the rest. Looking over these ratings, I wonder if half of them need buffs. Too many people are homing oin on the same ones.

Playing for Science, I go with Glory of God every game, even though I control the WC maybe 75% of the time. It comes down to also having the world religion 75% of the time -- what would I do with all that late-game faith otherwise? (Serious question.)

Click to expand...

Zealotry if you're going aggressive, or whatever GP have been unlocked by policies, which are admittedly not always super useful. Almost makes you miss vanilla where you'd have GE and GS faith buyable every single game because you always went for the same policies

Part of TtGoG's power is the way that Faith costs go up exponentially for each GP. Regardless of what victory type you're going for, being able to Faith buy a GP that indirectly contributes (and then get a nice little chunk of instant yields for doing so) for ~1k Faith is very useful when the next directly useful GP would cost you upwards of 10k.

I took Clericalism instead of Zealotry as Enhancer in my current game since I was going Statecraft and was able to spread my religion early and kind of regretted it, being able to stay friendly with every CS that has your religion with no effort sounds nice, but in practice there's often enough Great Diplomat and Great Prophet spam being thrown around that it gets you very little. That's getting off topic though.

Zealotry if you're going aggressive, or whatever GP have been unlocked by policies, which are admittedly not always super useful. Almost makes you miss vanilla where you'd have GE and GS faith buyable every single game because you always went for the same policies

Part of TtGoG's power is the way that Faith costs go up exponentially for each GP. Regardless of what victory type you're going for, being able to Faith buy a GP that indirectly contributes (and then get a nice little chunk of instant yields for doing so) for ~1k Faith is very useful when the next directly useful GP would cost you upwards of 10k.

I took Clericalism instead of Zealotry as Enhancer in my current game since I was going Statecraft and was able to spread my religion early and kind of regretted it, being able to stay friendly with every CS that has your religion with no effort sounds nice, but in practice there's often enough Great Diplomat and Great Prophet spam being thrown around that it gets you very little. That's getting off topic though.

Click to expand...

Good points. They seem to confirm much of what I said -- that you wind up in the usual places.

Global Commandments: Gain +10 Science, Gold, Culture, Faith, and GA points per turn while host of the WC. Gain 150 of those same yields when you pass a resolution. Era Scale on both bonuses.

N/A...maybe C or F for being OP.

I actually haven't tried this one myself, honestly I don't know why. This seems like an absolutely gimme for someone going strong diplomacy play. Effectively getting a solid bonus every turn, and then a mini Transcendence like bump every 15 or so turns, for if you are doing strong diplomacy getting your own proposal to pass is not that hard.

Seems like an incredible pile of bonuses, probably too strong but I'll need others take on it.

Click to expand...

Not always, playing heavy diplomacy means that you're going to be implementing lots of proposals that people might not like and will try to repeal, it's not rare that you'll have to go for a balance between voting in your new proposal or shooting down 1-2 harmful proposals, I'd say I pass mine probably like 75% of the time but not 100%. Anyways, from playing with this in my current game I think it's strong but not overpowered and a good example of what a Reformation Belief should be like.

On another note, One World, One Religion could probably use a buff, 1 vote per 8 CS is very little (same as Consulates Policy which also gives you a 50% bonus to CS rigging, and half the amount that Forbidden Palace gives you). I'd say doubling that to 2 votes per 8 CS would be better or maybe even tripled, a Reformation belief shouldn't be on par with a random Policy. The bonus to Missionary strength is kind of odd too, by the time you reform Missionaries aren't usually that important, but w/e.

So I've played a lot of games of CIV 5, and every Reformation belief works in the cities that follow the associated Religion. If you have cities with of a Religion with Jesuit Education, YOU can buy the Universities. If you have cities from a Religion with either of the units type, you can buy units with faith. I will typically fill out Piety later in the game, and I almost never see another Civilization grab it as their reformation.

I had assumed it would work the same way... but NO. If you steal a Prophet of a Religion with the "To the Glory of God" reformation, you CAN'T buy Great People in cities that follow the religion. It would seem to be city specific, but it only works for the player who go the Reformation.

And I'm sorry for posting in this thread, BUT THIS IS IMPORTANT INFORMATION! You would think by now, with all the people that play multiplayer, someone would've known this.

I went looking to find an answer as to whether TTGOG would work like Jesuit Education, and NO ONE knows anything.

So this final post is the shining jewel in this whole thread, that will actually be useful to people.

The answer is NO, if someone else gets "To the Glory of God" do not open Piety, you'll have to fill out Aesthics instead, and/or, Rationalism.

It's usually best to open piety sometime in the medieval / renaisance, to get some use of quickly building temples, but NOT get the +1 faith from shrines and temples until you hit the Industrial age, or close, since you're probably just going to get stuck with a bunch of prophets you don't want.

Of it depends on the Civ and the game, Commerce and Rationalism are great for a Freedom Civ like Venice, or a Jungle Civ like Brazil, but for the most part it's a LOT better to go piety for the great persons reformation, as you will end up Late Game with mountains of Faith and nothing to spend it on. What you'll want most are Writers and Scientists, but cheap Artist, Merchant, Engineer and General are good to get at least once.

There often isn't a lot of incentive to actually finish a tree. The food from Tradition is only super useful late game, and you will often get more out of 2 points in Patronage then full Rationalism, if you ally a lot of city states to get their 25% science. Opening Rationalism is good, but more then 2 points in it sucks. Research Agreements aren't reliable enough to build a policy around.

When you are full Warmonger, Patronage is especially useful. Just get city state allies, and stay at war with everyone, that way no one can ever replace you as ally, plus they'll all be at war with you're enemies. Aiming to go full peace is no good, sooner or later someone will do something to bring you into a war. Could be as simple as stealing your land with a general.

While the 3 policies to finish Piety will be next to useless, the ability to buy all types of great persons more then makes up for it. Plus you get Theocracy and more faith to boot. That's way better then not touching piety and finishing Aesthietcs and Rationalism.

-My Two Cents.

TLDR: "To the Glory of God" Does NOT work for other players who own a city of said Religion, only the player who got the reformation. (Hope that helps, since this is the post Google will direct you to when trying to find out.)

So I've played a lot of games of CIV 5, and every Reformation belief works in the cities that follow the associated Religion. If you have cities with of a Religion with Jesuit Education, YOU can buy the Universities. If you have cities from a Religion with either of the units type, you can buy units with faith. I will typically fill out Piety later in the game, and I almost never see another Civilization grab it as their reformation.

I had assumed it would work the same way... but NO. If you steal a Prophet of a Religion with the "To the Glory of God" reformation, you CAN'T buy Great People in cities that follow the religion. It would seem to be city specific, but it only works for the player who go the Reformation.

And I'm sorry for posting in this thread, BUT THIS IS IMPORTANT INFORMATION! You would think by now, with all the people that play multiplayer, someone would've known this.

I went looking to find an answer as to whether TTGOG would work like Jesuit Education, and NO ONE knows anything.

So this final post is the shining jewel in this whole thread, that will actually be useful to people.

The answer is NO, if someone else gets "To the Glory of God" do not open Piety, you'll have to fill out Aesthics instead, and/or, Rationalism.

It's usually best to open piety sometime in the medieval / renaisance, to get some use of quickly building temples, but NOT get the +1 faith from shrines and temples until you hit the Industrial age, or close, since you're probably just going to get stuck with a bunch of prophets you don't want.

Of it depends on the Civ and the game, Commerce and Rationalism are great for a Freedom Civ like Venice, or a Jungle Civ like Brazil, but for the most part it's a LOT better to go piety for the great persons reformation, as you will end up Late Game with mountains of Faith and nothing to spend it on. What you'll want most are Writers and Scientists, but cheap Artist, Merchant, Engineer and General are good to get at least once.

There often isn't a lot of incentive to actually finish a tree. The food from Tradition is only super useful late game, and you will often get more out of 2 points in Patronage then full Rationalism, if you ally a lot of city states to get their 25% science. Opening Rationalism is good, but more then 2 points in it sucks. Research Agreements aren't reliable enough to build a policy around.

When you are full Warmonger, Patronage is especially useful. Just get city state allies, and stay at war with everyone, that way no one can ever replace you as ally, plus they'll all be at war with you're enemies. Aiming to go full peace is no good, sooner or later someone will do something to bring you into a war. Could be as simple as stealing your land with a general.

While the 3 policies to finish Piety will be next to useless, the ability to buy all types of great persons more then makes up for it. Plus you get Theocracy and more faith to boot. That's way better then not touching piety and finishing Aesthietcs and Rationalism.

-My Two Cents.

TLDR: "To the Glory of God" Does NOT work for other players who own a city of said Religion, only the player who got the reformation. (Hope that helps, since this is the post Google will direct you to when trying to find out.)

Click to expand...

I'm not sure we are playing the same game.
Reformation works at player level. If you are the leader of a religion, you get all its perks, if you swapped religion, you lose the previous perks, pantheon and reformation believes included. The only thing that is local is the follower belief, this will apply to the city, thus working for any player that might adopt your religion without leading it. Well, and pantheons that give yields to the terrain or city will benefit the other adopters too.

I don't get what you are trying to say about policies. Usually it's just better to complete the latest available tree, so it's not very useful to start any medieval tree when you are already in industrial.
Completing a tree makes sense for two reasons. First you gain the finisher bonus, which is free. Then, most policies in the same tree work like cogs for a play style, so if you are gearing towards aggressive expansion, the extra population from tradition is counter productive, limiting your available happiness. Such things.

Finally, the ability to purchase any great person comes from the reformation to the glory of God, not from piety (currently called Fealty). If you need more faith points, then gain more cities, it's much easier and productive than starting Fealty late game.